


sleep in peace when day is done

by ladybubblegum



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Living Together, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Series, but seriously like 90 percent fluff, cute stalia that turns into mctatenski, domestic stalia, fluffy fluff with the tiniest bit of drama/angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-04-29 17:34:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5136584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladybubblegum/pseuds/ladybubblegum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles and Malia get an apartment together, and everything is almost perfect--until Scott comes home from college and drags up old feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sleep in peace when day is done

**Author's Note:**

  * For [puppyfacedbrokenboys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/puppyfacedbrokenboys/gifts).



> I started writing like five different fics for you according to what you requested, but none of them were really working for me. So I really hope this is to your liking.

Their first apartment was a little shoebox in the bad part of town.

Well--”bad part” was stretching it a little, since crime in Beacon Hills was relatively low (at least, the non-supernatural variety) but it was the section of town where high-schoolers could get a tattoo and maybe a bottle of bottom-shelf liquor without even being asked for ID, so it was as bad as it got. The apartment was cheap, since Malia was still working on all her tests and certifications for the Sheriff’s department and Stiles, freshly degreed, was looking for work better than his insane hours at the coffee place in the local mall, and it was barely big enough to hold all their things, but neither of them cared much. It was their first place that was all their own. No fathers to barge in on them, no driving an hour to see each other, no timing around schedules because they’d always be right there.

It was nearly perfect.

Of course, living together was an entirely different ballgame than the occasional sleepover. There was no space. Malia couldn’t just go home when Stiles was busy or if she needed time alone. Stiles had known this, intellectually, but there was still some rough patches early on. It turned out, neither of them liked doing dishes or sweeping or basically any chores, so for the first few months, it all just built up, until one night when they had an epically explosive fight about it and Stiles slept back in his room at his father’s for a night--from then on, they established a back-and-forth routine so the place would stay at least relatively clean.

But other than the bumps and rough patches...it was as close to perfect as Stiles had felt in a really long time.

After Scott, Malia was his best friend. They liked the same kinds of movies, and they ate the same kinds of food, and she put up with the weird quirks that usually got him labeled ‘annoying’ at best. She was smart and funny and hanging out with her was never dull or boring, or too much, or made him feel like he needed to get away. And he loved her--god, he loved her. He had a feeling he was probably going to marry her, if she’d have him.

(he totally didn’t have half of the wedding planned, nor did he already have ideas about kids--and he definitely did not decide that he wanted a boy and a girl and he _absolutely did not_ want to call them Luke and Leia if Malia would let him)

( _absolutely did NOT_ )

So they slipped into a comfortable routine after a couple months of settling in, and Stiles finally felt like his life was becoming something kind of like normal.

Then Scott came home from school for the summer.

\---

The doorbell woke them up at approximately 11:22am. Stiles was off that day and Malia didn’t wake up before noon if she didn’t absolutely have to, so when a bedraggled Stiles groggily opened the door, he was entirely unprepared to see a sunny-faced Scott McCall beaming at him on the the other side.

Instantly upon seeing him, Scott frowned. “Did I wake you up?”

Stiles’ still-sleeping brain took a moment to catch up before he blurted out, “Holy shit! You’re home!”

Scott’s bright grin made even being woken up early worth it.

When he got coffee made and his girlfriend up and moving around, the three of them settled into the threadbare but insanely comfortable couch they’d rescued from a curb two weeks ago.

“So, how’s school?” Malia asked, burying her icy toes beneath Stiles’ leg and letting her head drop to the side, resting it on the back of the couch. “You save any animals yet?”

Scott shook his head, legs folded up and his feet on the couch. It was incredibly adorable. “Nah, they won’t let us work with animals until we’re working directly with a vet. I’m kind of hoping I can eventually come here to work with Deaton. I could be around more often, not just on holidays and the occasional short weekend.”

“It’d be nice if you were around more often,” Stiles said, smiling. “Everyone misses you.”

Scott’s smile faltered. “I--I know it’s been rough for you guys, me not being here for, like, alpha stuff.”

“He meant more in the Scott stuff kind of way,” Malia clarified. Stiles grinned at her. “I mean, yeah it sucks having our alpha so far, but that’s easy to deal with.” She unearthed one foot to poke Scott in the leg with a big toe. “We miss you because you’re awesome and we love you, not because you’re our alpha.”

If Scott’s cheeks turned the slightest bit of red, Stiles didn’t comment on it.

“Well, I’m glad to be back, either way,” he murmured, taking a long sip of coffee. He put the cup down on the side table behind him and looked around. “So...this is the apartment.”

“Yeah, it’s not much,” Stiles told him, shrugging. “But it’s ours, and the rent is cheap enough.”

“I think it’s awesome!” Scott said, the enthusiasm not quite reaching his eyes. “You guys are good together, it makes sense.”

An awkward hush fell over them. Stiles was pretty sure they still weren’t mentioning Kira, even though the two of them had broken up months ago. Not that he blamed Scott for still being in grieving mode--he and Kira had been getting incredibly serious before she’d broken it off, and Stiles couldn’t help but feel bad about things going so well with Malia, even as unreasonable as that was.

“Well,” Malia broke the silence. “If you’re gonna be home all summer, you should hang out with us here. We could invite the pack.”

“Everyone’s basically got an open invitation as long as they call first,” Stiles explained. “Like at least half an hour before.”

Malia shrugged. “We have a lot of sex.” When Stiles turned his head to glare at her, one corner of her mouth was turned up in a barely-concealed grin. Scott choked on his coffee.

That was how Scott McCall became a fixture in the Stilinski-Tate household.

\---

It started small. Hugs that lasted too long, lingering touches, accidental personal-space invasions. Stiles hadn’t meant for it to happen, but then he should have expected his fucked-up brain to sabotage him at any given opportunity.

His childhood crush on Scott had reared its ugly head again at the worst possible time.

Because, yes, while he’d been in love with Scott for literal _years_ , things were just so good with Malia. She got him, and she was into him, and he was pretty sure she felt about him the same way he felt about her, and he didn’t understand why he just couldn’t move on from a hopeless crush that would just get everyone hurt.

Scott was over all the time, and it was amazing. It was almost like being in high school again, over summer vacation, playing video games and having movie marathons late into the night, only with the addition of Malia, which just made it better (it was fun watching Malia kick Scott’s ass in Smash Bros). Scott even slept over sometimes, on their lumpy old couch, when it got too late to head home. So Stiles saw him in all states of undress, saw him when he just woke up and was sleepy and adorable.

This wasn’t anything new, of course. But the last several years, Stiles had been able to put it out of his mind because Scott was unavailable. Like, he hadn’t even been able to entertain the thought of being interested in Scott because he always had a girlfriend, and Scott wasn’t a cheater--and Stiles wouldn’t want him to be, anyway. It made it so much easier to think of Scott as strictly his awesome platonic best friend.

But now Scott was single and so damn _available_ and showering at his house and napping on his couch and Stiles felt like the most horrible person in the whole world.

He could tell Malia was picking up on it, but he didn’t know how she felt about it. She didn’t act differently or seem angry at him, but there was the occasional raised eyebrow or furrowed brow in his direction. He was complete trash. He was horrible for daring to even think about someone else like that when he had an amazing girlfriend who loved him like Malia did. But she didn’t bring it up, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to, either.

He figured, he and Malia would be fine as long as he didn’t do anything supremely stupid.

Like try to kiss Scott.

\---

It was a pretty typical Tuesday. Malia was at the station and Stiles was goofing off with Scott instead of doing the chores he promised to do while Malia was gone. They’d been playing CoD for an hour before Stiles announced he was hungry.

“We have some microwave popcorn, come help me,” he told Scott, who laughed.

“You need help to push a button on the microwave?” Scott asked, raising an eyebrow.

Stiles threw a pillow from the couch at his head. “You can help get the bowls, asshole. Come on.” He heaved himself up and waited for Scott to do the same.

The popcorn was in one of the overhead cabinets, way in the back, behind the spices that Malia like to pour on her food like they were going out of style. It took him a minute or two to find the appropriate box--Malia always got the light butter stuff, since she hated the taste of the fake butter (one of the very few junk food preferences they decidedly didn’t share) and she ate the stuff more often than Stiles did, so her boxes always dominated.

Stiles found his box and turned just as Scott stepped up behind him with the bowls, putting them directly in each other’s personal space.

Stiles didn’t know what came over him. He’d been doing so well, with Scott, with not thinking about him like that. But in that moment, with Scott in front of him, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body, Stiles couldn’t help himself.

He leaned in and pressed his lips against Scott’s.

It was like being hit with electricity. Scott immediately pressed him back against the counter, setting the bowls down so his hands could fit around Stiles’ waist. He kissed back hard, desperate, and Stiles could only hold on and try to keep up as Scott pulled him closer, as close as they could physically be without actually melding together--

“Oh my God.”

They jumped apart like they’d been burned, and Stiles reluctantly looked up to see Malia standing in the doorway to the kitchen, looking thunderstruck.

“Uh...hi guys,” she announced, her expression unreadable. “I’m home early.”

Stiles couldn’t make words come out of his mouth, but Scott stepped up. “God, Malia, I’m so sorry. That shouldn’t have happened. I swear to god, this is the first time this happened, and it’ll never happen again--”

Malia cut him off with a raised hand. “This is the first time?”

“It is,” Stiles told her, his voice hoarse. “Babe, we didn’t plan this, it just happened. I’m sorry.”

Stiles’ tried to force his heartbeat to slow to a reasonable pace as Malia looked back and forth between them for a few moments. He was about to be dumped. He was about to lose one of the best things to ever happen to him, all because he couldn’t--

“Guys, calm down. I’m not mad.”

Of all the words he expected to hear come out of Malia’s mouth, those hadn’t even made the list.

“You’re...not mad?” he repeated, unable to wrap his head around the words.

Malia rolled her eyes and smiled. “Any idiot with eyes could tell you’ve been in love with Scott like forever. If Scott hadn’t been with Kira, I would have thought you two were dating when I met you.”

“So…” Stiles drew out, still massively confused (and a little affronted--he hadn’t been _that_ obvious), “What does that mean?”

Malia huffed a little impatiently. “Look, can I try something?”

Hesitantly, they nodded, and Malia strode purposefully up to Scott, wrapped a hand around the back of his neck, and kissed him.

Stiles’ brain broke.

It was a fairly chaste kiss, all told, but when Malia pulled back, Scott looked completely bowled over, even as his arms curled around her waist instinctively.

She stepped back, looking smug and glanced between the two of them.

“There. Fixed?”

Just like that, it was.

\---

Nothing really changed.

Scott slept in their bed instead of on the lumpy couch, and they went through like ten times more condoms, but everything else stayed pretty much the same. Scott was over at the house about as often as he had been before--which is to say, all the time. They still had movie marathons and played video games and did all the things they were doing before. Just with kisses.

It wasn't a completely smooth transision, of course. There was still that same little rough patch because as perfect as Scott was, he was a human being with his own quirks and habits, but at least they finally had someone who didn't mind doing chores.

Eventually, Scott would go back to college and get his degree and become the world’s best vet, and the three of them would get a slightly bigger shoebox together. They’d probably never be married, but Stiles was okay with that if it meant he could keep them. And maybe someday even further off, they’d buy a house and fill it with kids if they wanted them, or they’d get dogs, or they’d just enjoy each other forever.

In the meantime, though, well…

Stiles had never had anything perfect, but he figured this had to be pretty damn close.

**Author's Note:**

> A little background: Stiles is done with his 4-year and has a bachelor's degree (my headcanon is that he goes for criminal justice intending to become a deputy but gets dazzled by the concept of becoming a CSI or a private investigator). Malia decided to take some time for herself after high school (god knows she deserved it) and eventually decided she wanted to become a deputy and work with Stiles' dad. Scott is studying to become a vet--this requires more schooling than the undergraduate degree, which is why he's still attending school.
> 
> Come follow me on [the tumblr](http://ladybubblegum.tumblr.com)!


End file.
